A rumor that circulated online in August 2025 claimed a video showed U.S. President Donald Trump saying "trans people don't exist."
For example, on Aug. 28, X user @MaverickDarby posted (archived) the video with the text caption, "Trump: 'Trans people don't exist.' Unreal." The post received over 4.6 million views. Other users also shared the clip on Bluesky (archived), Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn (archived), TikTok, X (archived) and YouTube.
The clip featured Trump allegedly announcing the following behind a lectern at the White House:
My fellow Americans, enough is enough. We need to call a spade a spade. Trans people don't exist. Let me say it again. Trans people do not exist. I can tape a stick on a horse's head but that doesn't make it a unicorn. It's a horse, folks. Total horse. These are deeply disturbed individuals who have been manipulated by liars and psychopaths in positions of influence. They are on mind drugs, very powerful. And they are all addicted to porn, "porno," is what some people call it, I believe. Very destructive to the mind and spirit is pornography.
Some readers seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, while Trump's administration has repeatedly targeted transgender people with policy decisions since taking office for a second term, he did not actually say "trans people don't exist," nor did he say any of the other sentences audible in the video.
The video originated from @MaverickDarby's X account as a fake clip manipulated with an artificial-intelligence (AI) tool. The user's account features a bio specifying its content as "mostly satire." A user-approved community note on X, only publicly appearing at least hours after the user created the post, alerted users to the video's inauthenticity. BBC Verify senior journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh also debunked the video on X.
X user @MaverickDarby's usage of the word "unreal" in the text caption served as at least one hint @MaverickDarby created the clip, including with the usage of AI tools to manipulate Trump's lip movements with deepfake visuals as well as fake vocals. The end of the video displayed onscreen text reading, "Unreal: lacking in reality, substance, or genuineness."
Following a reverse image search of several frames in the clip, Snopes located the original, unaltered video of Trump speaking at the lectern. That original video appeared on the official White House YouTube channel and was shot on May 12, 2025 — an appearance during which Trump did not once mention transgender people. Readers can view the same moment from the altered video beginning at the 8:17 mark:
The fake video began circulating the day after a deadly mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Associated Press reported officials identified the suspect accused of killing two children and injuring 18 on Aug. 27 as 23-year-old Robin Westman, a former student at the school. While the AP said federal officials referred to Westman as transgender, the reporting also noted Westman's gender identity wasn't clear.
We contacted the White House by email to ask if they wished to share a statement about the video that manipulated Trump's lip movements and vocals. In response, a White House spokesperson only replied, "Why are you writing a story about a fake video."
For further reading, we previously reported about whether a video showed Trump pointing at a preteen girl while standing with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as another clip depicting Trump kissing the feet and toes of tech billionaire and former White House adviser Elon Musk.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources calling their output humorous or satirical.